


Adrift

by alloutforthewar



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 18:58:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5939662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alloutforthewar/pseuds/alloutforthewar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She just wants him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adrift

**Author's Note:**

> For leiascully‘s XF Writing Challenge, prompt: scent.

It’s days and days before she even thinks of washing the sheets. At first there’s the fleeting idea that he could show up at any moment, that she could open her eyes in the dim predawn light of her bedroom and he’ll be there, murmuring explanations and apologies, and she’ll forgive him, instantly, because at this point the anger has dissolved into something far less useful. 

She just wants him back. 

Now there’s a cold, sharp fear closing in on her insides, a small, evil voice whispering that this is it, that the last time she touched him was really the last time, that he’s gone somewhere he can’t come back from. 

So she burrows down into bed linen that still smells like him, her face buried in the pillow where he had slept, where he had laughed as she pressed her cold toes against him. The bed where he had pinned her beneath him and tickled her until she squealed, the bed where they had learned the secret things about one another, the things they didn’t let anyone else see. 

This was the bed where they had conceived this child, this miraculous, improbable, impossible child, his child, and he should be here in it with her. She needs him here with her. So she cries into the pillowcase where his scent lingers, aftershave and shampoo and him, sharp and sweet. She stays there until the last traces of him disappears, until she can’t find a place on the pillow that still smells like him, and then she sobs at this new loss, this new way that he has left her. 

She lies there until her mother comes to drag her out, shoving the sheets into the washing machine even as Scully begs her not to, begs her to let her keep this last piece of him, of them. She rescues the Knicks shirt from Maggie’s grasp, secreting it away in the bottom of her chest of drawers, whispering to it as though it was a direct line to him, as though if she kept it maybe he would no longer be lost. 

The doctor in her recognises this cycle of grief, but does not accept it, because even that word, _grief_ , speaks of a horror she cannot bring herself to contemplate. He is somewhere. He is. He is. And if he’s out there then he’s on his way back to her. He wouldn’t leave her like this. 

And it is this thought that eventually allows her to shower, to put fresh linens on the bed, to get dressed, to go to work, to throw water in Agent Doggett’s smug face. Because if Mulder is on his way back to her then she is going to be ready for him when he reaches her, and if possible she is going to meet him halfway. 

After all, she thinks, hand on her belly, she has so much to tell him.


End file.
